Ado (bishop)

Ado or Adon of Vienne (Latin: Ado or Adonis Viennensis;d. 16 December 874), was archbishop of Vienne in Lotharingia from 850 until his death. He belonged to a prominent Frankish family and spent much his early adulthood in Italy. Several of his letters are extant and reveal their writer as an energetic man of wide sympathies and considerable influence. Ado's principal works are a Martyrologium,[1] and a chronicle, Chronicon sive Breviarium chronicorum de sex mundi aetatibus de Adamo usque ad annum 869.[2]

Ado's chronicle is based on that of Bede, with which he combines extracts from the ordinary sources, forming the whole into a consecutive narrative founded on the conception of the unity of the Roman Empire, which he traces in the succession of the emperors, Charlemagne and his heirs following immediately after Constantine VI and Irene. "It is," says Wattenbach, "history from the point of view of authority and preconceived opinion, which exclude any independent judgment of events."